


Misinterpretations

by Andramion



Series: ask meme fic(let)s / tumblr prompts / drabbles [14]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Confessions, Getting Together, M/M, a lot of overthinking, or as one of my favourite readers put it: oh my god Tsukishima Kei get over yourself, the question of the ages, wow how much of an angsty little shit can you be before you believe in love?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-06-05 13:54:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15172130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Andramion/pseuds/Andramion
Summary: And although the silence between them probably just meansI'll bother you as soon as you pay attention to me, Kei almost wants to believe it’s anI'll just sit here and keep you company as long as you want.





	Misinterpretations

**Author's Note:**

  * For [artenon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/artenon/gifts).



> uh yeah so i got really excited to see Allie was back writing HQ so i wanted to do a quick 200-word-or-so drabble as a welcome back and/or thank you present and then.. it ended up being a bit more...

As the music softly wraps around him, Kei lies still.

His fingers are threading between blades of grass, his ankles crossed lightly, his eyes closed. He can still see the shifting light as soft clouds pass over him, and a breeze ruffles his hair softly.

The skin of his thighs is slightly colder than the rest of him, where a shadow falls over them. Next to him, Kuroo is basking in the sunlight, but Kei is trying to ignore it.

He doesn’t know what this is, really, this quiet bubble around them. Kuroo seemed like the kind of person who always had too many things to say, do and see. But when Kei had looked up what must have been half an hour ago and Kuroo had been looming over him, Kuroo hadn’t said a thing. Instead, he’d sat down, his back facing Kei, hands resting on the ground behind him.

And although the silence between them probably just means _I'll bother you as soon as you pay attention to me_ , Kei almost wants to believe it’s an _I'll just sit here and keep you company as long as you want._

Kei’s phone is playing quiet love songs with voices too warm for Kei to follow the English lyrics. It’s not that he couldn’t know what they say, what they wax poetic about, but he can’t be bothered to listen so attentively when he’s this relaxed, for the first time since the summer started.

Maybe for the first time in years.

It took a few moments before Kei remembered to let his breathing even out again, that the tightness in his chest didn’t mean he couldn’t breathe, that the heat in his hands didn’t mean he had keep them in fists.

Now he runs his hand across the ground, opens his eyes and notices how he only has to reach out to place his palm against the skin of Kuroo's neck.

And he kind of wants to.

Kei pinches some of the grass between his fingers and turns his face away as the guitars start up around him again. He closes his eyes.

"-kishima. Tsukki."

Kei's eyebrows draw together as one side of his headphones is pulled away from his ears, and he scrunches up his nose at the lack of late afternoon sun in his face.

"Tsukki, are you awake?"

Kei grunts and turns away, swatting his hand at the movement next to his ear. "Like you wouldn't keep asking me until I woke up."

"Who says I haven't been calling your name for ten minutes already?"

He can practically hear the self-satisfied smile in kuroo's voice. For a moment, he debates whether he should turn around to retort, or just grab his headphones again and go back to sleep.

"I've tried many different versions. Tsukishima-san, Tsu-chan, Tsukki, Tsukishima, Tsukkun. There's so many options, Kei."

He does actually turn around at that. "What?"

Kuroo looks anything but innocent as he looks up and pouts. "There's so many options, 'kay?"

Kei narrows his eyes at him, waits until Kuroo shows him a sheepish laugh and throws Kei's heart into disarray without even knowing it. He sits up, folding his legs under himself and lowering his headphones until they hang around his neck, the padding snug around the sides. It isn't until then that he notices how cool the breeze has turned, and he shivers against the cold.

"I thought you might want to get inside," Kuroo says, somehow already standing up, and Kei watches as he stretches a hand out to him. He knows it means _I'll pull you up_ , but all Kei hears is _trust me_.

He pushes up from the ground himself, brushes the grass off his shorts and hopes he didn't get stains on his jersey. When he looks back around, Kuroo's hand is at his side again. He doesn't think of what it would have felt like to hold it, palm to palm. He doesn't.

It takes Kei a second to remember what Kuroo had just said, another to swallow a quip and be genuine. "Thank you. Only idiots catch colds in summer."

Although he knows that it means _That was funny because you would have caught one if I hadn't woken you up,_ Kei ignores the chaos behind his stomach at the sound of Kuroo's laugh and speaks instead.

"You seem like the kind of person who would."

"Hey!" Kuroo laughs again and Kei watches him fail miserably at trying to look offended. "And here I thought you'd started being nicer to me. My poor heart, it's gonna break if you don't handle it with more care, Tsukki."

"What makes you think that right there won't make me want to drop it and make it crack all the more?," Kei asks him, standing up a little straighter and putting on his sunniest smile as he looks down at Kuroo. But unlike the spluttering he's become used to getting from Hinata and Kageyama, Kuroo's eyes just crinkle with amusement.

"At least you're acknowledging that I've given it to you then," Kuroo says with a pat on Kei's shoulder, and he starts ahead towards the school buildings.

That's _I'm just teasing you,_ but Kei wants to think _what if he has?_

Kei follows after him, watching the green and blue of the evening sky creep in on the settling oranges and pinks behind the third gym. It gives Kuroo's silhouette an almost otherworldly glow, and Kei is disgusted at himself for even thinking that.

He walks close enough behind Kuroo to see how the soft hairs at the nape of his neck stand in all directions, close enough again to reach out and touch his fingers to the skin there.

He wants to, wants to surprise Kuroo, wants him to turn around and look Kei in the eyes and _understand_. He's good at that, way too good for Kei's tastes, but it would be so much easier if Kuroo could just look at him and see all the ways Kei has imagined kissing him. All the times Kei has sat, stood, walked next to him and wished Kuroo's teasing jokes were more than just that. All the times he's stopped himself from showing all of that before.

These past few days have been hell. Kei has no reason to think of Kuroo like this, to find his smarmy grin heart-warming, to think his stupid antics are cute, to enjoy his company as much as he does. He has no reason to have fallen for Kuroo so hard.

Maybe, maybe if he reaches out and touches Kuroo now, stops him, looks him in the eyes and tells him all the things he's been thinking... Maybe then, finally, he could move on.

His hand moves up.

For second Kei thinks things will go exactly as he imagined, but then Kuroo turns, his shoulder bumping into Kei's fingers, and Kei pulls back immediately.

"Tsukki?"

Kei wrings his hands together in front of him as Kuroo bends down slightly and looks up at him when Kei refuses to meet his eyes.

"What's up, Tsukki?"

Kei makes the mistake of catching the movement in the corner of his eye, because now he's looking at Kuroo, and Kuroo is looking back, and Kei has to squash down the hope that the emotion in Kuroo's eyes means something like _I feel the same_.

"It's nothing," he replies. "I'm fine."

And he is. Despite the redness of his ears, the squeezing feeling in his chest; despite the fact that if he stops wringing his hands, he'll do something stupid like reaching out and hugging Kuroo, he's _fine._ He just needs to get this over with.

"Kuroo-san, I-"

"Back to polite again?" Kuroo asks, and Kei bristles a little at the interruption. How can he get this across if Kuroo for once won't try to read the words straight out of Kei's brain?

"Kuroo-san, I-" He stops again, on his own this time. What does he even want to say? He's scared of ending this, of moving to the next part when Kuroo won't. His mind is racing, his thoughts a jumble of _I want_ and _I should_ and _what is he thinking?_

And what he ends up with is this: eyes meeting Kuroo's, hands relaxing and falling to the side of his body, words soft but clear.

"Kuroo-san, would you kiss me?"

He was expecting it, but his stupid, stupid hopeful heart wouldn't listen and he hadn't _expected_ it.

"No."

Kei closes his eyes. Breathes in. Breathes out. He should have known, he should have never asked, he should just nod, should just leave. He should leave.

"I shoul-"

"Not if you're going to make that the end of this."

 _The end of this conversation_ , Kei thinks, and he braces himself at the thought of having to actually explain himself. When he opens his eyes, though, he catches Kuroo's gesturing hand, pointing between the two of them. And Kei realises. _The end of us._

Kuroo's eyes are soft, so much softer than usual, but they're more determined than Kei has had the confidence to be in a long, long time. Then he smiles, and Kei lets out a breath along with him while Kuroo shakes his head.

"What am I going to do with you?" Kuroo asks, his hands fluttering as though he too, is unsure how to move, and Kei's brain seems to have stopped processing, because it's not making sense, and it's not making sense that it doesn't make sense. Kei is _good_ at making sense of things. "I figured you'd tell me, eventually, when you were ready, but I didn't think..."

Kuroo shakes his head again and then smiles at Kei, ever so patiently, and it gives Kei the space to catch up. _The end of us,_ he realises, _not if he's going to make a kiss the end of the things between them._

And Kei thinks, maybe, if he reaches out and touches Kuroo, his image won't fall apart at the end of Kei's fingertips after all.

He's not sure who reaches out first, but then Kuroo is in his arms, and Kuroo's are wrapped around him, and Kei is burying his nose in Kuroo's neck and Kuroo's shaky laughter sounds in his ear.

"You did it all wrong, Tsukki," Kuroo says, slightly breathless, "You were supposed to just realise that I like you back and then come up to confess to me and then I was going to give you flowers before you had a chance to. And you would have scrunched up your nose and called me an idiot. And I would have called you cute."

Kei can't help but let out a laugh. He's not sure if he's relaxed or worked up, with the way a weight seems to have lifted off of him, but his whole body is buzzing with electricity.

"Idiot," he says, but he doesn't scrunch up his nose. He rubs it against Kuroo's shirt and pretends he doesn't want to cry with relief.

"Cute," Kuroo says, as promised. And despite thinking it means _That's a joke, because you're a lanky beanpole of a guy_ , he can maybe, maybe also believe that it means _Hey, me too, I like you too._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Please do leave me a comment if you have a minute to spare, they're fuel to my typing hands.


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